VEGFA and hepatocellular carcinoma: Considering that CLEC3Bhigh in HCC cells would significant influence expression of VEGF, then we treated HCC cells with exosomes, and found that supernatant from HCC cells treated with CLEC3Bhigh exosomes obviously reduced mRNA expression and secretion of VEGF in recipient HCC cells, whereas no effects were observed in the cytoplasmic protein levels of VEGF (Additional file 9: Figure S7C-S7D and Fig. 3d).